Friday, October 28, 2011

I didn’t sleep at all last night because of the cough. I went to see a doctor today and she said I’m definitely sick! I have a sinus infection and bronchitis. I was really feeling it today when I went in. So now I have antibiotics and will hopefully be on the mend. DH came home for the day. Overall boring an eventful day since I took some cough medicine and went back to bed. I’m really sick if I go back to bed.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

I spend much of my day correct my 9yo who is always asking, “May me and E have a snack?” I always respond with “Who?” “Oh, I mean may E and I have a snack.” So, my blog heading is driving me nuts. I don’t know what I was thinking when I put that together. I know better!!! But the thought of redecorating my blog is up there with organizing my socks, so I’ll just have to live with it.
Today was interesting. In the breaks between hacking up a lung, I managed to get the boys through their lessons. But it can never stay serious around here for too long. E asked me if he could go to the bathroom in the middle of his math lesson and come back looking like this:

He saw the photofunia app on my phone and wanted his picture on a “Billboard”. At first I thought he was asking me to put his photo on a real billboard. I was really confused. I eventually figured it out and this is what he chose. I crack up every time I look at it. This goofball finished two reading and math lessons today so maybe he needs a stache everyday?
I didn’t get much done in the way of housekeeping today. But I found out about a really wonderful feature on my oven! I wanted to make dinner in the crock pot but when I pulled the chicken out it was all freezer burned. I had to toss it. Fortunately, I made a couple freezer meals a few weeks ago. I pulled one out. But then I realized that I would never remember to put it in the oven at 3:30 to cook. So I set it in the oven and programmed the oven to start at 3:30 and turn off at 5:00. It worked perfectly! The dish had some time to thaw before cooking and came out of the oven smelling heavenly.
Laundry was towels. And L helped fold a couple clean loads left over. We have to get better at that. But I think overall the laundry situation is much improved. Tomorrow is L’s turn to wash her clothes.
Tomorrow is a busy day.The kid’s have art class in the morning and A has physical therapy in the afternoon. We’ll have to squeeze in some school work in between all that. There are no plans for tomorrow night.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I’m blogging again! But I don’t have too much to say. The voice is getting better. But I’m still hacking away.

So another day of trying the new routine. Since I end up in a coughing fit every time I talk, my little guys worked on their Classical Conversations memory work on their own. I put our CC memory work up on the fridge. Our kitchen table overlooks the fridge so we will spend some time at dinner practicing the CC memory work. L doesn’t have to memorize the foundations work in her Challenge class since they are memorizing all the countries, geography terms, pages of Latin vocabulary, and later anatomy. But she usually ends up memorizing the foundations work by osmosis. She even has the Veritas Press timeline partly memorized. Amazing!

I made the boys clean up their room today. What a mess!!! They didn’t get the clean gene either. But our biggest issue is the massive amounts of Lego craziness that is in their room. Couple that with poorly utilized (or maybe even worthless?) storage units and it is an absolute disaster in their room. Most days I don’t even look in their room. It makes me cRAzY!!!

Well, I’m coming clean here and I’m going to post and before and after shot. The sad thing is that there room still isn’t finished. I’m trying to get it organized and cleaned-up because I want to paint the room in the very near future. I bought them cute Camo bedding and the periwinkle walls as just as they were when we moved in. Not “cool” for a boy’s room!

Here’s the mess:

Here’s that corner after. Not too bad for the five minutes it will stay clean!

The other four corners are still in class 1 disaster status. And will be cleaned over the next few days. While working on this mess, I am also switching out their summer clothes to winter clothes. So it’s a huge undertaking!

Sadly the boys are not to get out any more Legos until they keep the ones that are already out on the table off the floor and somewhat organized. It’s such an issue that something had to be done. They are lucky I didn’t just take all of them away.

Today was their laundry day. There were three loads from their room. I still have one to fold and put away. But I broke E’s Plasma Ball and the glass pieces are in that basket. I have to shake the clothes out outside. (and I have to find a new plasma ball.)

And our afternoon/dinner routine is improving. I have to start dinner at 4:15 to have it ready in time. I think tomorrow I’ll do a crockpot meal so I can spend more time in the boys’ room.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I've come to terms with my inability to keep up with this blog. ;) But for some reason today I felt the need to come say something. I think it is because I lost my voice and haven't gotten enough words out today. I totally stopped talking at 5:00 after I realized that I was really straining by having to say everything more than once to everyone. This family has ONE volume level. VERY LOUD! I'm certain any other family would wonder why we are always yelling at one another! E says that our family is yell-ful. LOL Anyway, my lack of volume was not getting my point across, so I just started writing everything down on a notepad. Except E can't read fluently so that's been difficult because he is the only one home with me right now. He’s sounding everything I write out and then writing notes back to me.

So, anyway, we've been working on some things around this house. A few weeks ago I read, More Hours in My Day: Proven Ways to Organize Your Home, Your Family, and Yourself. It didn’t help immediately. In fact, there wasn’t much in it that I didn’t already know. But I was really drawn to her chapter on having a family mission statement. We spent part of this weekend working on that and narrowing some things down about this family. We love to work with kids and our time certainly reflects that. But we need to come up with a way to balance that with the rest of our life. Laundry has to get done. Meals must be cooked. Dishes done. You get my point. So while we can’t cut much out of our scheduled, we had to come up with something to make our house function better. We all agreed that we will stop what we are doing at 4:30 to start dinner and clean-up. The clean-up is based on what is needed. Most nights this means that we are off to swimming, exercising, or scouts by 6:30. So these two hours are devoted to getting our act together. We also have decided that nothing can be added to the schedule unless it fits into our mission as a family. I know it’s easier said than done…

Of course the first couple days of this new plan have been a complete mess. I came down with the killer cold that has caused me to lose my voice. While I haven’t been a totally lazy bum, I certainly haven’t felt like doing much around the house. And yesterday I had to go pick up my glasses (which I’ve been told look really great on me!!!) from Wal-Mart. The only time I could get out of the house was at 4:00. I threw in a couple other errands so we weren’t home until after 5:00. Ooops. And then today, I set the boys to work but my Sudafed stupor has been less than helpful. Plus, I had to leave L and Classical Conversations Challenge class this afternoon. Her ride couldn’t bring her home until 5:30. We would normally be home about 3:45ish depending on how long after CC we chat with friends.

I will not be defeated though! I’m doing what I can to keep it all going. Laundry is pretty simple, so I’m keeping up with that. This summer I made a laundry schedule that worked pretty well (see the picture). But it went by the wayside when L’s schedule became consumed with her CC school work. She really doesn’t have much time left in her day after she finishes her work. She even is doing school work in the evenings which is fairly new to our schedule. So, now I’m trying to get back at it rather than the survival laundry we’ve been doing. I like doing one room per day because then everyone gets some laundry done. When we dump it and sort it into one pile, it seems that my favorite jeans are always on the bottom and never get washed because we just keep dumping and piling.

That’s my housekeeping saga for my 2 readers. Hopefully I won’t go 6 months before another update. Blogging will hopefully help me sort this out and keep on track!